Catalyst
by TwistedSky
Summary: Things usually stay the same without some sort of catalyst for change. And somehow, things had changed a lot . . . until finally she realized she was in love with him. Bonnie/Damon.


My first Bamon-and my first TVD story. I own nothing :)

* * *

She hates him less than she ought to.

She thinks about him much more than she should.

She blames him less than she used to.

She loves him now, but she won't admit it. It's shameful, it's wrong. She can't love a vampire, and she most certainly can't love _Damon_.

It must be the vampire craze. Seriously, if all of those tween girls in love with Edward from _Twilight _had any idea what it was like being around vampires, or having feelings for one, they wouldn't be so obsessed.

It's harder than it is in the movies, or the books. And there, it's pretty damn hard, though it usually works out just fine in the end.

But life isn't a movie. Life isn't some fairy tale that has to end well. Real life can end however it damn well pleases.

It hurts to love him.

She doesn't know how to accept that. Or maybe she does, but she's too afraid.

There are things she doesn't know how to reconcile. Like the fact that Caroline had become a vampire. It was her fault, in a way. But it was his-and really Katherine's, which again brought her back to blaming him. Mostly so that she didn't have to listen to the voice in her head that screamed that she was to blame. She told him to give Caroline his blood. She didn't know how to deal with that.

She didn't know how to deal with most things when it came to Damon. She wants to just hate him. But it's complicated sometimes. Like how he killed Jeremy in front of Elena-though he knew he'd be fine-just to prove how cruel he was, and to say that maybe saving him was a waste of time.

Maybe that was it, she considered. Maybe she wanted to save him. Maybe she had some sort of hero-complex, that would certainly explain it. Then it wouldn't be her fault.

For a brief moment she wants that to be true, for it to really be that simple. But she knows it's not.

Now, she sits. In the darkness, looking out her window.

She wonders when it happened. It was so simple at first. Just hate. Just resent. Just want him "dead." So simple. An emotion without complications, without empathy or compassion.

It had just changed. She'd saved his life because of Elena, she'd told herself. She still didn't know if that were true, exactly. She'd still hated him. She blamed him for her grandmother's death. She blamed him for just about everything that went wrong in Mystic Falls. Somehow it was easier to blame him than to accept that he wasn't as bad as she made him out to be.

After Caroline had been turned, she blamed him for that too.

At first all she'd felt was blind rage. When the guilt came to her hours later as she was alone, she'd wanted to cry. The tears had started to fall, blinding her before she'd even realized she'd begun to cry.

That was a turning point. At that moment she'd accepted that she was not blameless, that things were more complicated than they seemed. That Damon wasn't all bad, and she wasn't all good-though she'd never truly believed that she was, but she'd thought of herself as right, as one of the good guys, regardless of whether or not she was perfect.

It was so much more complicated than that.

She sighed. She'd been so confused, and she'd simply started acting rather crazy-to her friends' eyes at least, she was sure.

She'd changed. Slowly and strangely.

She'd finally accepted Damon and Stefan as fixtures in Elena's-and therefore her-life.

It was harder to hate Damon then. Suddenly, she could see his suffering. She could see that he was somehow confusingly in love with both Katherine and Elena-and that love had ruined him, had corrupted the good and kind part of him, while simultaneously being the reason that it existed in the first place.

Complicated. Hah. To say the least.

It hadn't been too bad though, the not-hating Damon thing. Things had changed so quickly though that she'd lost her balance.

Slowly, but surely, she'd started to like him. And then it had been easy-she'd suddenly realized that she was horribly, irrevocably in love with him.

She, Bonnie Bennett, who had once blamed him for just about every bad thing that happened in life, had fallen for Damon. A vampire.

She'd blamed it first on hormones. After all, he was damn attractive, she'd noticed that the first time she'd laid eyes on him, even though she'd pushed that thought away with stern efficiency. It hadn't been as easy as she'd thought it would be.

She'd been so weak. And then he'd risked her life to save hers. That had been the true catalyst-the trigger of her downfall.

That crazy bitch Katherine had kidnapped her to tease Elena.

Katherine was going to kill her. Bonnie had felt it with everything that she was. And she'd drugged her, making it hard for her to fight back. She had been so hazy . . . and all she really remembered was some sort of fire, and Katherine's laughter . . . and Damon.

She'd woken up in the hospital days later, and Elena had told her what had happened. Damon had rescued her, and killed Katherine.

She'd gone to him as soon as she'd been able.

"Thank you, for saving my life," she'd said.

"I didn't do it for you." He had quickly shoved aside her thanks.

He'd wanted her to forget it. But it had been all she could think about.

Every day got harder, whether she saw or didn't. She tried avoiding him. It didn't work. She tried dating someone else. It didn't work. She was stuck on him. And she hated herself for it.

And the worst part was, he was in "love" with her best friend.

* * *

It was Christmas that ruined her. Damon had been somewhat normal, somewhat okay. Elena had decided that what they really needed in order to relax was a party. A Christmas Eve party, of course. It hadn't really clicked in her head beyond the fact that she'd have to dodge Damon, and pretend that she hated him.

She didn't think about the mistletoe. Bonnie didn't understand mistletoe in the first place. Wasn't it some sort parasite? The fact that it had its origin in Celtic rituals didn't comfort her. Her witchy ancestors were to blame, obviously.

She'd been doing a fairly good job of avoiding Damon for most of the night, but then Elena had called her into the living room from the kitchen and she'd bumped into him. Elena had smiled nervously. "Mistletoe."

They had both looked up. _Damn_.

She knew she could get out of it, but she'd been so flummoxed she hadn't known what to say or do. She'd simply stood there, staring straight ahead. Then she'd met his eyes. There had been something there that she hadn't understood. He'd smirked his signature Damon smirk and leaned down. Her eyes had fluttered closed, but then she hadn't felt him kiss her.

She'd opened her eyes to seem his lips an inch away from hers, the smirk gone from him face. She'd opened her mouth to say something-she didn't know what, and she never would-and he kissed her.

Everyone else had disappeared. It was just Bonnie and Damon in a single, perfect moment.

The kiss was softer than she thought it would be, with an urgent, rough undertone.

And then it was over.

He'd moved away from her, back into the room she had just vacated. She'd turned to see everyone staring at her. She'd left soon after that, claiming that kissing Damon had literally made her ill.

Lies, of course.

* * *

That had been earlier that night. Now, it was nearly dawn, and it was Christmas. And she was alone, looking out her window, wondering when it all got so complicated.

She decided to go on a walk to clear her head. She grabbed a jacket, and opened the door, when she froze. Damon was standing right outside her front door.

"Why are you here?"

"Why did you let me kiss you?"

They both spoke at the same time. Bonnie steeled her nerves, she felt like every little molecule of her being was buzzing with something like anticipation. She wanted to kiss him again. She mentally smacked herself. Focus.

"You first," she said.

"I want to know the answer to your question, Bon Bon."

"Mistletoe, it's tradition," she said, because there was no way in hell she was going to tell him the truth, that she had wanted-and still wanted-to kiss him. Because she was in love with him.

"And you're really big on tradition."

"Of course."

Bonnie had leaned out of the doorway, drifting closer to him as they spoke, as if she couldn't control herself. Suddenly he grabbed her, pushed her against the wall of the house.

"Then stop me from kissing you now." He leaned toward her slowly, waiting for her to put a stop to it. To stop him.

She didn't.

Damon smirked, realizing that she wasn't going to stop him. "I don't even have to kiss you, I think I've proven my point."

Bonnie struggled to breathe. He was still mere inches away from her. "Which is?"

"You like me."

What an odd thing to say. "No, I don't. Maybe you're spending too much time with teenagers Damon. Sometimes when someone hates you, they actually hate you."

"Do you hate me?" He stared into her eyes intently.

"Why wouldn't I?" They both realized that it wasn't an outright denial.

"If that's how you want to play it . . . "

She didn't know who had done it, maybe it had been both of them, but suddenly they'd closed the small distance between them. She pressed herself against him, lips meeting lips, her arms interlocking behind his head, his hands went to her hips.

She moaned softly as he pressed her against the outside wall next to the door. She pulled away first. "I don't know why I just did that."

"Obviously, Bonnie, that was proof that you hate me."

Had she taken the time to think about it, she wouldn't have told him the truth. She would have lied, just like she'd been doing for months.

"I hate myself for it."

"For what?"

"Loving you," she pulled away from him and moved back into her house, and slammed the door in his face.

She sank to the ground, her back against the door. Why had she just done that? She must be a glutton for punishment, because she was never going to live this down.

* * *

He knocked at the door. Crazy witch.

He waited. He wondered if she'd open the door. It was entirely possible that she wouldn't-but that wasn't Bonnie. Bonnie didn't run away from what she was afraid of, and this was a challenge, she wouldn't be able to help herself. She'd meet it.

She opened the door. "What?" she bit out harshly.

"Bonnie, I-"

"Save it Damon. If you're going to tease me, or if you're going to spout some nonsense about feeling the same way, don't."

Damon looked at her intently. He raised his hand to her cheek, stroking it softly.

Finally, he spoke. "If my heart could beat . . . it would beat for you. I promise you that. I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm not trying to trick you."

"What about Elena?"

"What about her? It's not her, Bonnie. It's you."

"I don't believe you." But she wanted to. "When you saved my life, you said it wasn't for me. I thought that meant it was for Elena."

"It wasn't. It was for me."

"I don't understand." She really didn't.

"With Elena-and with Katherine too-it was always Stefan. It will always be Stefan. And I finally accepted that. And you were there, and I saw you clearly. And when Katherine almost killed you, I knew. I knew it was you."

"I-"

"I know."

"Come in," she grabbed his arm, pulling him with her, shutting the door behind him.

"I love you." Neither one of them could believe he'd said it.

"I love you." Neither one of them could believe she'd said it.

"Where do we go from here?" Damon asked.

"Doesn't matter. Stay, with me. I-I need you to stay."

And he did.

And something truly beautiful finally happened that night.

Two lonely souls finally came together. And it felt right.

* * *

AN: I admit freely that this is kind of ridiculous. But it came to me, and this is how it decided to manifest itself. And I listen to my muse, I do not question it :)


End file.
